The Xiangjiang Yongzhou to Hengyang Class III Waterway Construction Project is a key infrastructure construction project of the Ministry of Transport and Hunan Province, and also a key water transport project for Hunan Province to integrate into the development of the Yangtze River Economic Belt. The builders of the Phase III project of the Xiangjiang Yongzhou to Hengyang Class III Waterway Construction are racing against time to seize the construction period, ensure quality, and speed up progress, going all out to push the ship lock project into an accelerated phase.

At the construction site of the Xiaoxiang Ship Lock, an important node project of the project, nearly 200 construction workers are holding fast to the front line, turning the holiday into a "construction period." With a clear division of labor, everyone is busy welding the reinforcement of the lock chamber floor slab. Nearby, excavators are also running at full power to step up the earthwork excavation of the foundation pit, dump trucks fully loaded with soil shuttle back and forth, and various engineering machines are working intensively, creating a bustling scene of construction.

Peng Zhe, deputy general manager of the Xiangjiang Yongzhou to Hengyang Class III Waterway Project Construction Department of Hunan Provincial Water Transport Construction Investment Group Co., Ltd., introduced: "At present, construction has started on the Xiaoxiang and Wuxi ship locks. The foundation of the Xiaoxiang Ship Lock chamber has been fully opened up. All project participants are fighting on the construction front line, seizing construction progress to ensure that the chamber walls of the Xiaoxiang Ship Lock reach the top by the end of the year and to complete the annual investment target of 1 billion yuan."

The Phase III project of the Xiangjiang Yongzhou to Hengyang Class III Waterway Construction has a total estimated investment of 3.158 billion yuan. It includes the improvement of an 82-kilometer, 1,000-tonne-class waterway from Pingdao in Yongzhou to the Wuxi hub on the Xiangjiang River, the construction of two 1,000-tonne-class ship locks (including fishway projects) at Xiaoxiang and Wuxi, and supporting waterway facilities. It is expected to be fully completed and open to navigation in June 2026. Once the project is completed, the 723-kilometer-long high-grade waterway from Chenglingji in Yueyang to Pingdao in Yongzhou will be fully connected, meaning that the Xiangjiang waterway, part of the high-grade waterways of the Yangtze River system under the national plan of "two horizontal, one vertical, two networks, and eighteen lines," will allow 1,000-tonne-class vessels to pass unimpeded. A "water expressway" will run north-south through Xiaoxiang and, via Chenglingji in Yueyang, connect to the river and the sea. Moreover, the completion of the project is of important strategic significance for further filling the shortcomings of Hunan Province's water transport infrastructure and, in the long term, connecting the Yangtze River system and the Pearl River system and opening the Xianggui Canal. Compared with going to sea from Yangtze River ports, using the Xianggui Canal as a sea outlet will greatly reduce the logistics cost for Hunan (the central and western regions) in exporting to Europe, Asia, and Africa.